I've been a slacker

I've been a slacker, both in weight loss effort and in posting here.

I haven't given up....far from it....I've just been comfortable and frankly, have given myself a break on watching every point.

Why? Sometimes I overextend myself. I try to "be" and do too many things all at the same time, and I need to be good if not excellent at them. Whoa....egotistical? I don't think it is ego because I'm not looking for approval from others, it is an internal struggle. Maybe it is the Virgo in me.

Anyway, I've been taking a lot of art classes and enjoying them....until I do something that either greatly disappoints me (ugh! that looks like hell!) or something that I simply do not enjoy but it was the scheduled lesson.

I was always a good student. I never skipped school, never missed turning in an assignment, never copied someone else's work. I loved school then and like taking classes now. The difference is that I am 63 years old, closing in on 64 (how the hell did that happen??) and I am not getting grades on what I do, no degree is being earned and no one is buying my art because I'm not selling.

So what is my problem?

I can be busy and still be relaxed if all of the busy-ness is fun stuff that I want to do. When the fun stuff plus the stuff I should be doing slams into the unexpected and a very full week of scheduled events, I become the high school student who didn't sleep well on Sunday nights because I was overly concerned about the week ahead, both classes and socially. My social life during my public school days was never ideal. I was, to be a blunt, a fat kid for most of those years and was a pariah to many. I had friends but looking back, it was all rather shallow as I only maintained one of those friendships after graduation.

I sometimes need to remind myself that I've come a long way and that I don't have to prove myself to anyone and I should be as nice to myself as I try to be to others. Since repeating this to myself often the past few weeks, I've found a way to indulge in excesses at parties (back to back to back two weeks ago!) and holidays (Memorial Day and July 4th) and still lose slowly. I know that the closer one gets to goal, the slower the loss becomes. Part of it is probably metabolic but I know that a big part is complacency.

When I'm around someone who thinks a person must be productive all the time, I tune them out or consider how agitated they seem when they are preaching that nonsense. It is okay to sit and enjoy the quiet.

I've given myself permission to learn some lessons without doing the project as planned. I've given myself permission to enjoy everything around me without truly losing control of what I eat. I am almost back to my lowest weight in this journey, something that has been up and down 3 pounds since the first of the year. I think I am ready to focus on the finish line, if you want to call goal the finish line. Truthfully, I know that this isn't the case. Maintaining goes on forever, there is no finish. It's rather like housework and laundry.

I think I am ready to start some form of exercise too. Gosh, I hate that word. Guess I need to change my attitude toward that, eh?

Despite chocolate pudding over the past weekend and two fewer Hershey bars in the cottage refrigerator, I am down .6 from last week and that was down .2 from the party-party-party weekend. I'm okay and I plan to stay okay.

Onward and downward, 11.8 to goal.